


Five Times Vala Mal Doran Told Rather Less Than the Whole Truth

by lunabee34 (Lorraine)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Minor Character Death, Tok'ra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 03:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1372066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/pseuds/lunabee34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Backstory for Vala</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Vala Mal Doran Told Rather Less Than the Whole Truth

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [This Precarious Object, the Body](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1372015) by [lunabee34 (Lorraine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/pseuds/lunabee34). 



1 **“And once you have been spat on and stoned by the people of your own village, well, you try forming lasting relationships.”**

“Where are you taking me?” Vala says and her voice sounds imperious, demanding. She tries again. “Not that I’m not grateful for the lift. Or for you ridding me of Qetesh.”

Anise doesn’t look up from the tel’tak’s controls. She’s barely acknowledged Vala’s presence since they left the Tok’ra base and Vala wishes she had some cards or a game of dinkat to pass the time as apparently Anise’s services don’t include conversation. Finally Anise speaks. “I will leave you on the fourth moon of Danan. I have business there and I believe you have associates on that world.” Anise lingers ever so slightly over the word associates, as if no one Vala has ever met could be worth Anise’s mention.

“Yes. That’ll do nicely,” Vala says and tries to remember if she owes Primmie money. The answer is most likely yes. Perhaps she’ll contact Logan instead. He’s never been able to resist her particular brand of charms.

They pass the remainder of the three hour journey in silence. Vala supposes that in some ways the silence is preferable. Her voice reverberates inside her head to an entirely different pitch when she speaks now, and while welcome, the change is quite disconcerting. As is determining what to do with her arms when she stands or whether to cross her legs. Vala knows what Qetesh would do, but of herself she is no longer certain.

Anise rings her down to an old outpost on Danan Four and continues on to Danan Prime. “Goodbye then,” Vala calls out to the tel’tak as it crosses the horizon line. She squares her shoulders and lifts her chin and practices walking seductively on the way into the village. She’s nearly reached Logan’s tavern, The Zat and Staff, when she realizes the village is bursting with Jaffa, more than she has ever seen on this moon at any one time. And many of them bear Qetesh’s mark. She presses her back against a storefront, hoping she hasn’t been seen, but when has life ever been lucky for a Mal Doran?

“Qetesh!” one yells. “The false god is in our midst. Seize her!”

Vala runs, which she knows is foolish. She could never outrun a single Jaffa warrior, much less a band of them. Hiding is no option either. The moon has changed so greatly in her absence that the lay of the land is a mystery to her. So Vala runs, her ears full of the heavy metallic sound of pursuit.

When they catch her, as she knew they would, Vala collapses on the damp earth and begs. “Mora’c,” she says. “I know you are a fair man. A just man. I’m Vala, not Qetesh. Qetesh is gone. Please don’t punish me for what she did.”

Mora’c lowers his staff weapon, considering, and the others do nothing to molest her while he deliberates. Mora’c was an excellent First Prime and he clearly retains that authority with what’s left of Qetesh’s army. “It is true she carries no symbiote. She is Qetesh no longer,” Mora’c says.

“This may be so, brother,” says a young Jaffa Vala does not recognize, “but she has been seen by Qetesh’s former human slaves. They will not be so understanding. We brought them to this world so that they could begin again as we have, in freedom and in control of their own destiny. They will expect a reckoning.” 

Vala can hear murmurs of assent in the crowd and she thinks hysterically what an oxymoron Tok’ra intelligence has turned out to be.

“Your words are wise, Nok, but this woman is as much a victim of Qetesh as we are. As they are. We cannot allow her death.”

Vala hears yelling in the distance and the disorganized sound of many people who have not done so before running as one. The Jaffa again raise their weapons as a crowd of twice their numbers ruptures the forest.

Mora’c holds up a placating hand. “This woman is not Qetesh. She is Goa’uld no more. The symbiote has been removed.”

“Why should we trust you?” one man sneers. “You’ve devoted your entire life to protecting her. You punished us when it suited her. You killed us when it suited her. Why should now be any different?”

The mob moves restlessly, the forest succumbing to its wrath—brush trampled underfoot, sweet cari blooms crushed by the press of bodies, birds silent in the swell of voices. Vala does not lift her face. If she is to die, this contempt is not the final thing she wants to witness. 

A strange silence overtakes the crowd and Vala looks up. At the far edge of the throng stands an older man whose family Vala can remember Qetesh starving for some minor infraction, his children with cheekbones like blades and dark smudges for eyes. He picks up a rock, white and flecked with mica, and hurls it at Vala. Its jagged edges catch her on the temple and she reels backward. Mora’c stuns the man with his zat’ni’katel and the other Jaffa hustle her to the rings. They take her by ha’tak to New Lorraine and Vala never sees any of them again, human or Jaffa.

Sometimes, though, Vala lifts the heavy veil of her hair and runs her fingers over the tiny scar that stone left behind. Qetesh would have erased the blemish almost instantly; the Goa’uld do not mark easily. Vala, of course, has no such option and she is glad. “This,” she thinks, “this is real. This is mine.”

2 **“Legally? Hmmmm. Well, it’s hard to keep track. Let’s see. The first one was a part of a band of traveling entertainers. He was a good cook, too. Couldn’t make pie, though.”**

When Vala is sixteen, she marries for the first time. Her dress is the radiant yellow of sunlight, of gold coin, and that significance is not lost on her.

“Keep your eyes peeled, Vally,” her father—no, Jacek—says as the music begins. “That damn cross is somewhere and I know you’ll find it. You’re my lucky girl.” He kisses her on the top of the head and then drags her down the aisle when the flutes kick in, his grip on her arm cruel and unyielding.

Later that night, after the festivities have ended, after Vala has danced with every man and quite a few of the women in the Soleara township, after Jacek has surreptitiously relieved a few of the more wealthy guests of the weight of their pockets—after these things, Vala sits on the edge of Wodon’s bed and waits for her new husband to come to her. She has already scoured the room for the cross and no dice. Now there’s nothing to be done but to lie back and think of treasure and pray that she’ll find it first thing tomorrow.

If Wodon even has the cross. The evidence is fairly compelling but Jacek has been wrong before. Apparently, back when Wodon traveled the galaxy as part of the famed Libique Troupe, he once drew the patronage of Baal. Baal gifted him with the Cross of Eternal Fire, a heavy golden pendant inlaid with rubies and opals. Vala knows that much is true. She’s seen video of Wodon wearing the blasted thing. But what he’s done with it since he left the Troupe, Vala doesn’t know.

Vala picks at a thread in the coverlet and wonders what’s taking Wodon so long. She isn’t nervous exactly. She knows what will happen. She’s not a virgin, although Vala doesn’t think it would have affected her father’s plan even if she was.

Finally, Wodon comes to her. “Hello, my wife,” he says, and Vala realizes he is much more anxious than she is. He sits beside her on the bed and takes both her hands in his own. “I know that we do not know each other well, but my people have married in this way for generations and I believe that you and I can be very happy together.” He tucks a strand of hair behind Vala’s ear and leans in to kiss her.

His kiss is tender, gentle, and Vala gives herself over to him. Wodon undresses her slowly, his mouth moving wetly over all the places he uncovers, and what they are doing now is nothing like fucking Bil in the dark corners of his aunt’s cargo ship, fearful of discovery. No, Wodon touches her as if she is sacred, as if she is precious, as if his sole duty is to wring from her every bit of pleasure her body can afford. 

When she comes the third time, Vala parts Wodon’s robes and curls a hand around him. His cock is soft, tiny in her grip, and Vala is bewildered. Wodon carefully pushes her away and sits up. He looks at the floor, at the mess of their sheets, at anything but Vala. “I am impotent,” Wodon says, his cheeks pinked with shame. “I cannot pleasure you in that way. I had hoped that if I showed you the other things I can do for you, you would forgive me my lack.”

“Wodon,” Vala says, and when he still will not look at her, she lifts his face in her hands. “There is nothing to forgive, my husband.” The smile he gives her then is of pure joy, and Vala’s stomach twists in self-disgust.

The next morning, when Wodon has gone to market, Vala finds the cross wedged under a loose floorboard in the storeroom. She wraps it in one of her dresses and hikes through the grassland until she has passed into the next township. Jacek is waiting for her in the tavern. 

“I found it,” Vala says and unwinds just a corner so that her father can see the brilliant fire of gemstones.

“That’s my girl,” Jacek says and reaches out with greedy hands.

Vala palms the cross and hands over empty cloth. If she hurries, she can make it back to Soleara before Wodon even knows she’s gone.

3 **“Oh, I didn’t attend school. As much as I was sold as a domestic servant to a weapons smuggler named Foranes. After I killed him and won my freedom, I considered my education more or less complete.”**

The penal system on Bolon is remarkably efficient. Jacek’s trial takes place only three days after their capture. The arbitrator allots Jacek twenty minutes for his defense, time which he squanders on inanities and flatteries that will certainly fall on deaf ears. Watching Jacek make a fool of himself, Vala is not sorry they were captured. Her father deserves to be punished. She and Jareth, her half-brother, are still considered minors on Bolon and thus not liable for their participation in the illegal sale of Doctor Jacek’s Miracle Herbs. Jacek smiles so widely at the court that Vala is sure his mouth will split open at the seams, and Vala thinks that whatever punishment the court metes will be decidedly less than her father deserves. Then the arbitrator delivers her sentence and Vala realizes belatedly that because she and Jareth are minors, they are still considered Jacek’s property on this world and thus are subject to removal by the court.

“The two children, Jareth and Vala Mal Doran, will become wards of the state until such time as Jacek Mal Doran’s debt is repaid. The work they do will be debited from the fine he owes. The children will now proceed to the Office of Labor for their assignments.”

The expression on Jacek’s face is almost comical as Vala and Jareth are escorted from the court room. He doesn’t even acknowledge his own sentence, twisting around at the waist so that he can watch them until they disappear behind the solid wooden doors of the courtroom. 

Vala estimates a day or two, a week at most, to shake their captors and get the hell off this world, Jacek be damned. But then she and Jareth both are injected with subcutaneous transmitters to prevent their escape and she resigns herself to life as a domestic servant on a state owned farm in the arsehole of the galaxy. At least the court decides not to separate her from her brother; Jareth will work the fields of the same farm and considering the way things have gone for the Mal Dorans lately, Vala counts herself lucky.

“It’s not so bad, Vally,” Jareth says, thumping her shoulder. 

“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have Foranes tyrannizing you all day long. And don’t call me that. I hate that name.”

“You cook and clean. How horrific can it be?” Jareth says. Vala sticks out her bottom lip and he relents. “Alright then. I’m sure it’s unspeakably awful. Much more backbreaking than digging boulders from the field.” He rolls his eyes. “Come here and I’ll braid your hair.”

Vala grins and hops up on the cot beside her brother. His hands in her hair are soothing and familiar and she falls asleep that night with dry eyes for the first time since they came to the farm.

Three weeks pass and under Foranes’s tutelage, Vala learns to roast vegetables, basting them in their own juices until they are tender and sweet. She learns to brew norflower tea in a glass jar in the heat of the sun and also how to bleach fine linens until they are blindingly white. Vala finds a grim sort of satisfaction in the work that she does, in the tangible results of her two hands—pots scoured until the copper reflects Vala’s face back to her, wooden floors polished until they gleam, her brother’s easy smile when she makes his favorite stew.

Vala is kneading dough, her arms aching with the effort, when the foreman comes into the kitchen and says, “There’s been an accident.” He holds his hat at his waist and stares at his shoes and when Vala finally understands what he means, she runs into the fields and her hands leave white streaks of flour on Jareth’s brow and in his dark hair.

The horrific and absolutely unfunny thing is that Jareth’s death is what finally clears her father’s debt. Jareth is property after all and the value of his life is deducted from the remaining balance. In fact, the Bolon government now owes Jacek money, although Vala can’t imagine the sliding scale used to determine the worth of a life. She and Jacek leave Bolon more flush than when they came, and the next time Vala speaks to her father she is living under Cheyenne Mountain.

4 **“She wanted me to give her a name. . . . Adria. Told her it was my mother’s, [but really it belonged to my] stepmother. Witch of a woman.”**

Vala’s mother has been dead for merely weeks when her father brings home another woman. Adria is the physical opposite of Vala’s mother—tall, blonde, large hipped. Vala hates her instantly.

“You promised me, Jacek. You swore you’d stop these scams,” Adria says.

“And I have. This is legitimate work. Legitimate work, Adria. I’ll be gone a week or so. Three at most.”

“Did you mean to bring home a wife or a nursemaid?” she says quietly in a voice that frightens Vala. Then Adria slaps Father, the shape of her hand a stark white on his cheek before the blood rushes in to fill it.

“I’ll be back before the snow melts,” Father says as if nothing has happened. Vala doesn’t see him again until the spring flowers have bloomed.

In that time, Vala and Adria develop an uneasy truce. Adria sews little dresses from leftover scraps for Vala’s dolls and she lets Vala help her bake little sweet cakes to eat with their tea in the afternoon. Vala doesn’t tell Adria she hates her anymore or pour honey in her hair when she’s sleeping and she keeps her room as spotless as a five year old is able. Vala misses Father dreadfully and her mother even more so, but Adria is not such terrible company.

When her father returns, he is gaunt, his skin grey and unhealthy. He’s grown out his beard and Vala rubs her palms over its prickles in delight. His arm is in a sling and he can’t swing her up over his head like he usually does when he comes home, but that’s alright. Vala doesn’t mind.

Vala wakes early the next morning and skips down the stairs. She and Adria will make sugar cakes for Father and he will be so pleased with what she’s learned while he’s away. Vala is taking down the flour from the pantry when she realizes that Adria is sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor with her traveling bags spread around her in a circle.

“I’m leaving,” Adria says. “Your father promised me he would live an honest life and he can’t keep that promise. I won’t live the rest of my life like this, Vala, and I don’t think you should either. Come with me.”

“What?” Vala doesn’t understand. Father is home and everything is wonderful again. Vala doesn’t ever want to leave her father and she doesn’t understand why Adria would either. Vala realizes much later that Adria must have been waiting all that time for Jacek’s permission to take her away. She wonders if he gave it. She wonders if he is ever sorry she didn’t go. Vala knows that she certainly is.

Adria hauls herself up on the pantry doorknob and holds out a hand to Vala. “I can’t promise you riches but I can promise that you’ll never want for anything essential and that I’ll never ever leave. Your father can’t do the same. Come with me, Vala. Please.”

Vala drops the flour, horrified, and bolts herself inside the pantry. “No!” she screams. “I won’t go! I won’t go!” She stuffs her fingers in her ears and sobs and when she finally opens the pantry door, Adria is gone and her shoes have tracked flour in a straight line to the front door.

 

5 **“No, really. It’s . . . that’s fine, Daniel. You’re right. I can see why you wouldn’t want to become involved with someone so pathetic.”**

Vala thinks sometimes that Daniel is broken beyond repair, that his wife’s death destroyed whatever capacity for romantic love he once possessed. Vala sees the way Daniel is with Teal’c and Sam and General O’Neill when he turns up unannounced at the SGC. He cares for them. He trusts them. But he’d never sleep with any of them. At least Vala thinks not. She’s been wrong about so many things since she came to this world and maybe this is another. But Vala doesn’t think the kind of love Daniel has for his team is erotic. He seems incapable of that kind of love.

“Not today, Vala,” Daniel says, bent over a book in a way that Vala is certain must be damaging his spinal cord.

“But you don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“Yes, I do,” Daniel says, not looking up. “You either want me to sleep with you or buy you something or help you liberate treasure from Area 51. The answer is no three times over. Go bother someone else.”

Vala leaves without telling him that it’s been two weeks since she’s seen the sun or breathed anything but recycled air and a trip to the parking lot would be nice, thank you very much. Sometimes Vala cannot understand why she stays among these people, why she allows them to speak to her as they do. They barely disguise their contempt for her even as she proves over and over again that she can be trusted. That she is an asset. That she is worthy. 

Vala slams the door to her quarters, and deciding the dull thud does not nearly reflect her mood, she turns over the nightstand and drops that dreadful lamp on the tile in the bathroom. Now that is a satisfying sound. 

“Oh, please,” Vala says to the room at large. “Like I’ve never seen an attractive man before. Does he truly believe that I’m so besotted by his beauty and his brains that he can treat me like gowzek droppings? I’ve killed men for less.” Vala slides down the wall and idly picks up a large shard of glass that bounced onto the carpet near her bed. “Or at least shot them in the foot.” 

Then she sweeps up the bathroom and rights the nightstand and heads to the mess for dinner. Daniel is eating with Cameron and Teal’c and Vala slides in next to him with a tray full of french-fries. 

“Did you enjoy your excursion?” Teal’c asks her and Vala remembers that she told him this morning that General Landry green lighted her request to spend the afternoon in the great outdoors. No matter. Her time on Earth is proving once again that Vala’s threshold for embarrassment is much higher than she once believed.

“Didn’t have one,” she says around a mouthful of potato. “Daniel was too busy.”

“That is unfortunate. Dr. Lam will be most displeased.”

Daniel and Cameron both look up from their meatloaf and Vala nearly giggles at the expressions on their faces. “What?” Daniel says.

Vala completely ignores him. “Don’t be ridiculous, Teal’c. I appreciate Dr. Lam’s concern but I do not have this Seasonal Affective Disorder that worries her. I’ve never even heard of such a thing.”

“Even so,” Teal’c says, “it is SGC policy that no one remains under the mountain for longer than two weeks except under emergency conditions, and eighteen days have passed since our last mission.”

Suddenly Vala feels the urge to smash something into lovely bits well up in her again, but no lamp is immediately available. “Muscles, as long as I stay on this planet I am a prisoner.” Mitchell starts to interrupt and Vala raises her voice, talks over him. “Gilded cage. Yes, yes. But a prisoner nonetheless. If the SGC thinks I need an hour of sunlight every fourteen days, I guarantee you that someone will escort me outside to receive it.”

“Vala,” Daniel says, his brow furrowed, the corners of his mouth turned down. “You’re not a prisoner. You know that.”

“I’m not, am I? I’ve been—oh, what’s the word—consulting for the SGC for several months now and while I’m grateful for the room and board—truly, I am—don’t most of the other people who work here get paid?”

“Well, yes,” Daniel says, “but . . .”

“Let me put this another way. If I wanted to take the money that I haven’t earned and go to Chuck E. Cheese’s by myself for pizza, would I be permitted?”

“Chuck E. Cheese’s?” Mitchell says.

“It’s the only restaurant name I can recall. The commercials are quite memorable.” Vala spears a fry and drags it through the ketchup on Daniel’s plate.

Daniel pushes his glasses up further on his nose and looks at Vala as if he’s never actually seen her before. “If you really feel that way, why do you stay?”

“Daniel, I was burned alive by a powerful race of Ascended Beings who are bent on overtaking this galaxy. And believe me, it’s not an experience I wish to repeat. The Tauri overthrew the Goa’uld. You gained the trust of the Asgard. You sent an expedition to another galaxy. And I think you are better equipped than anyone to defeat the Ori.” Vala stands. “Maybe you disagree but I believe I can help. In any case, I know now there’s nowhere I can hide. The Ori aren’t going away and I would rather face them with you than die holed up like a coward on some backwater moon. Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I have a date with a hot bath.”

Vala soaks for an hour in water so warm it pinks her skin for hours after she’s drained the bath. She drinks a glass of wine and puts on the satin pajamas that Sam gave her and lays awake thinking about Daniel. When she first met him, she believed that he was the kind of man she could grow to love, but now she’s not so sure. Daniel is fundamentally damaged in ways that she never anticipated and Vala doesn’t think she can fix him. But Vala can’t quite kill the tiny fragment of unbidden hope that she is wrong. She’s been on more than one fool’s errand, and every so often the girl does get the gold.


End file.
